Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/367

Rh pendently arrived at the same results as Herzen and introduced Feuerbach's work to Herzen; by Bakunin; and by the youth of Russia, despite their love and veneration for Granovskii. Herzen's philosophy was the education of the more radical generations, and is still to a large extent their education to-day.

Young Russia thus became differentiated into three camps, that of the slavophils (I refer here to the founders of the school), the liberals, and the socialists or radicals. These designations lack precision, it is true. They fail, above all, to give an adequate indication of the religious and metaphysical outlook of those found in the respective camps, though it is this outlook which constitutes the classificatory mark. Herzen spoke of his own tendencies as materialist and positivist, and the term atheist might just as well be applied.

To conclude, we may say that, while the contrast between the slavophils and the westernisers is striking, in concreto, in the phenomenal world of history, manifold and numerous transitional phases exist, and the representatives of the two trends mutually influence, correct, and supplement one another. The contrast between Russia and Europe is no more absolute than the contrast between present and past.

The advantage or perhaps it would be better to say the charm, of the slavophils as defenders of Russia and her past is that they have a circumscribed general outlook, which is, however, rather an artificial, imaginative construction than the product of active research. The strength of the westernisers, as defenders of Europe and modernity, consists in their scientific elaboration of certain debatable theories. Whilst the slavophils were chiefly philosophers of history, the westernisers were rather historians, jurists, specialists. The westernisers were representative or scientific Russia and progressive philosophy; the slavophils were conservatives in philosophy. The slavophils believed in Russia ("Russia cannot be grasped with the understanding; one can only believe in Russia," said Tjutchev); the westernisers believed in Europe, but were critical alike of their fatherland and of Europe, and desired to attain the utmost possible scientific clarity concerning both.

In the political field the slavophils were conservatives and reactionaries, whilst the westernisers, as liberals and socialists, distinctively constituted progressive and democratic Young Russia.

The Hegelian left in Russia, like the Hegelian left in